The Taproot Assets Daemon tapd implements the
Taproot Assets Protocol
for issuing assets on the Bitcoin blockchain. Taproot Assets leverage
Taproot transactions to commit to newly created assets and their
transfers in an efficient and scalable manner. Multiple assets can be
created and transferred in a single bitcoin UTXO, while witness data is
transacted and stored off-chain.
- Mint and burn assets
- Synchronize to universes
- Send and receive assets
- Export and import Taproot Asset proofs
- Create and manage CLI profiles
When minting a new asset, Taproot Assets will generate the relevant witness data, assign the asset to a key held by you and publish the corresponding bitcoin UTXO -- the minting transaction.
The outpoint this minting transaction consumes becomes the
genesis_point of the newly minted asset, acting as its unique
identifier. Assets can be spent to a new recipient, who provides the
sender with the necessary information encoded in their Taproot Asset
address.
To transact assets, the witnesses in the prior transaction are recommitted into one or multiple taproot outputs while the necessary witness data is passed to the recipient. Similar to bitcoin transactions, the remaining balance is spent back to the sender as a change output.
Learn more about the Taproot Assets Protocol.
Taproot Assets are implemented as the Taproot Assets Daemon tapd
and the Taproot Assets Command Line Interface tapcli. Additionally,
tapd exposes a gRPC interface to allow for a direct integration into
applications.
Taproot Assets leverage several lnd features including the Taproot
wallet and signing capabilities. These facilities are accessed through
lnd’s gRPC.
Bitcoin blockchain backend <-> lnd <-> tapd
Custody of Taproot Assets is segmented across lnd and tapd to
maximize security. lnd holds the private key, which has had a taproot
tweak applied to it, controlling the Bitcoin UTXO holding the Taproot
Asset. The taproot tweak on the other hand is held by tapd. This
increases the requirements for asset recovery as both the internal key
as well as the taproot tweak are necessary to spend the output. This
prevents lnd from accidentally burning Taproot assets.
Taproot Assets require lnd
version v0.20.0-beta or later to be synced and running on the
same Bitcoin network as Taproot Assets (e.g. regtest, simnet,
testnet3). RPC connections need to be accepted and a
valid macaroon
needs to be present.
$ git clone https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd.git
$ cd lnd
$ make install tags="signrpc walletrpc chainrpc invoicesrpc"Compile Taproot Assets from source by cloning this repository. Go version 1.24 or higher is required.
$ git clone https://github.com/lightninglabs/taproot-assets.git
$ cd taproot-assets
$ make installRun Taproot Assets with the command tapd. Specify how Taproot Assets
can reach lnd and what network to run tapd with by passing it
additional flags. The Bitcoin backend and lnd need to be running and
synced before the Taproot Assets daemon can be started.
$ tapd --network=testnet --debuglevel=debug \
--lnd.host=localhost:10009 \
--lnd.macaroonpath=~/.lnd/data/chain/bitcoin/testnet/admin.macaroon \
--lnd.tlspath=~/.lnd/tls.certSee a full list of options by executing:
$ tapd --helpUse tapcli to interact with tapd:
$ tapcli assets mint --type normal \
--name fantasycoin --supply 100 --meta_bytes "fantastic money"
$ tapcli assets mint finalize
$ tapcli assets listSynchronize yourself with a universe, for example the one running as
part of the issuer's tapd.
$ tapcli universe sync --universe_host testnet.universe.lightning.financeAdd multiple universes to your local federation to always stay up
to date. You can also use the universe to query existing assets and
their metadata. You may also configure your tapd instance to listen
to incoming requests with --rpclisten 0.0.0.0:10029 to run your own
universe.
$ tapcli universe federation add \
--universe_host testnet.universe.lightning.finance
$ tapcli universe rootsOnce you have obtained the necessary proofs and asset IDs, you can generate a Taproot Asset address for a specific asset and amount.
$ tapcli addrs new --asset_id bab08407[...]129bf6d0 --amt 21The sender can now fulfill the request by initiating the transfer:
$ tapcli assets send --addr taptb1q[...]tywpre3aTaproot Assets exposes a gRPC (port 10029) and a REST (port 8089) API. Connections are encrypted with TLS and authenticated using macaroons. The API is documented here, and further guides can be found here.
tapd has supported mainnet since version v0.3.0.
IMPORTANT NOTE: To avoid loss of funds, it's imperative that you read the
Operational Safety Guidelines before using tapd on
mainnet!
The daemon is still in alpha state, which means there can still be bugs and
not all desired data safety and backup mechanisms have been implemented yet.
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE uninstall (or re-install) the "Lightning
Terminal" app without first making a manual backup of all local tapd data,
if you are using Taproot Assets as part of the "Lightning Terminal" app with
Umbrel -- or any comparable node-in-a-box solution. Uninstalling Umbrel apps
deletes application data. This Taproot Assets application data encumbers
Taproot Assets AND bitcoin funds. Receiving and sending tapd assets
updates the daemon's funds-custody material. Merely having the lnd seed phrase
is NOT enough to restore assets minted or received.
WITHOUT BACKUP BEFORE DELETION, FUNDS ARE DESTROYED.
Everything related to the RFQ (Request For Quote) system, the asset's currency precision (decimal display) and the RFQ price oracle can be found in this document.
Please use the GitHub issue tracker to report bugs, or to request specific improvements.
Join us in the Lightning Labs Slack
and join the #taproot-assets channel to ask questions and interact
with the community.